Olympus OM-D - Is it just me?

 

A while back, I sold my backup camera, A Canon 7D. It was a fine camera. A great camera for sports and really the best all-round Canon under $7000. That is why I bought it in the first place. But then I upgraded to a 5DII which is definitely no sports camera but I don't shoot sports. I do portraits and commerical photos and this was going to be my tool of choice. This meant my 7D was getting no love anymore. I hated to see it sitting in my camera case, just sitting. It wasn't fair. I had to find it a new home where it would once again serve its purpose as a great all-round camera. I did find a new home for it and I think it will fit in very nicely. This meant I had to get a new back-up camera.

I made the move to the Olympus OM-D, E-M5. What a horrible name. I just call it the OM-D. This is a camera that has been receiving rave reviews and apparently some people have even switched from their full-frame cameras (like my 5DII) to this little Micro 4/3 sensor (1/4 the size sensor to that of the full frame cameras). I read many reviews before pulling the trigger so I figured I knew what I was getting into.

I decided to purchase the kit with the upgraded 12-50mm lens. The lens, I had been told, was fantastic. My experience is that it does have some cool features but picture quality is not one of them. My favorite feature of the lens is the customisable button which you can program to actuate one of many controls. I set it as my ISO button. And that is where my love of the lens ends. It just doesn't deliver the quality I expect. It has bad CA, horrible lens flare and weak sharpness. I just had to see if there was a way to get better images from this cool little OM-D. I did a little research and found a Canon lens adapter on ebay for around $49 which allows me to use my lenses for my 5DII on the Olympus. The downside is there is no aperture control from the camera - you have to do this manually on the adapter, like an old SLR lens and there is no autofocus. This makes taking photos a little more challenging and also a bit of fun.

 

 So, here you can see what the little OM-D looks like with the Canon 24-70mm L lens. Pretty crazy looking setup. I have used this, the 50mm f1.4 and 85mmf1.8 lenses, all with "Meh" results.But I wanted to try my Canon lenses which I know have fantastic image quality on the OM-D to see if the lens is the issue or if it is the camera. Ends up being a bit of both.

 No matter how careful I am with getting the focus just perfect, the OM-D just cannot touch the image quality I can get from the 5dII. For small images, up to maybe 5x7" and for web use, you probably can't see the difference. Once you look at the images at 100% you can quite easily see.

 So, I am just going to assume that everyone out there who has fallen for the OM-D has done so blindly. It is a fun little camera and I do take it everywhere with me, but I do not realistically see it as a replacement for people who need professional image quality. Am I missing something? Am I totally wrong here? I don't know. I really, really like the OM-D. I just wanted to love the images it produces. So far, I'm not there yet.

 

Anyone out there have some experience with the OM-D? Getting good photos, bad photos? Switched from your full-frame camera to the OM-D? Tell me what you think!

 

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